Fluid dispensing head assemblies, such as, for example, hot melt adhesive fluid dispensing head assemblies, are known to conventionally comprise an air heater block, a service block which is mounted atop the air heater block, a plurality of fluid dispensing valves which are mounted upon a front face of the service block, a filter block mounted upon a rear face of the service block, an air manifold which is mounted atop the service block for operative cooperation with the plurality of dispensing valves, and an air distribution block which is mounted upon a rear surface of the air heater block. It is also conventional to fabricate the air heater block, the service block, the air manifold, and the air distribution block components such that the same have respective width dimensions which can mount or accommodate, for example, six (6) dispensing valves.
While such fluid dispensing head assemblies are of course suitable or adequate for performing numerous fluid dispensing or deposition operations in accordance with specific fluid deposition applications or requirements, other fluid deposition applications may require the use of other fluid dispensing head assemblies which must accommodate or mount a number of dispensing valves which is different from the conventional fluid dispensing head assemblies housing or accommodating six fluid dispensing valves. Consequently, such other fluid dispensing head assemblies must have dimensions which are different from those of the aforenoted conventional fluid dispensing head assemblies which comprise six dispensing valves. Accordingly, such other fluid dispensing head assemblies must in effect be customized or fabricated in a custom-made manner so as to in fact comprise a greater number of dispensing valves whereby such customized or custom-made fluid dispensing head assemblies would then be suitable for accomplishing the desired dispensing or deposition operations. The customized or custom-made fabrication of such other fluid dispensing head assemblies, however, is quite time-consuming, whereby production of such other fluid dispensing head assemblies requires a considerable amount of time to achieve with the result that customer orders unfortunately require a considerable amount of time to fill.
A need therefore exists in the art for a new and improved fluid dispensing head assembly, and more particularly for a new and improved fluid dispensing head segment or modular unit assembly which enables a plurality of fluid dispensing head segment or modular unit assemblies to be readily secured together in predetermined multiples. In this manner, fluid dispensing head assemblies of predetermined sizes can in effect be rapidly fabricated or manufactured in order to readily meet customer's requirements for such predeterminedly sized fluid dispensing head assemblies without the need for customizing or custom-making such assemblies as original single integral assemblies having the desired or required sized dimensions.